BLACK LEADERSHIP MATTERS
Floyd Mayweather Joins Kyrie Irving In Leading Black Folks Off A Cliff
Telling Black folks to avoid vaccination is not a "power to the people" moment
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“Power to the people doesn’t mean what five-time world champion boxer Floyd Mayweather thinks it means. Full stop. No way telling Black people to protest vaccine mandates furthers our collective interest. Yet, Mayweather recently threw his full support behind Kyrie Irving’s no-vaccine mandate campaign. It’s a shame that these prominent, wealthy, Black men are using their platforms to spread misinformation that may lead Black people off a disease-ridden cliff. But, yet, here we are.
When I lost two uncles and my mother-in-law to COVID-19 in 2020, there was no vaccine available. We were all rolling the dice back then because we had no choice. Our loved ones passed so quickly that we didn't have much time to say goodbye or commemorate their passing with traditional second-lines or brass-band funeral processions.
The virus is like a serial killer on the loose, and instead of locking our doors, Mayweather and Irving want us to let him inside and just believe in our ability to win the good fight. Meanwhile, on Earth one, "Black people are four times as likely to die from COVID."
Mayweather and Irving may be strong, athletic, healthy men with top-notch health insurance and folks in their corner. But their rhetoric seems to assume we are in the same position, even though many of us aren't equipped to fight the virus on our own. Also, even healthy young people have died of the virus and more so within the Black community.
A report by ProPublica said, "COVID-19 hollowed out a generation of Black men. They were pillars of their communities and families, and they are not replaceable." So, if you care about Black men, which I'm assuming other Black men like Mayweather and Irving do, then it doesn't make sense to say "Power to the People," as you encourage more Black men, women and children to avoid vaccination.
In a one-on-one battle, COVID-19 is the undefeated champion of despair. So far, one out of every 800 African Americans has died from the virus, and that's not isolated to the elderly members…
